


Nothing But Time

by MissJeeves



Series: Timely [6]
Category: Justified
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Blackmail, Danger, Double Penetration, F/M, M/M, Multi, Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 15:03:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1822729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissJeeves/pseuds/MissJeeves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim recruits help; Raylan finally asks for some.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing But Time

Somewhere in the five days hospitalized, he stops being Tim Gutterson the U.S. Marshal, and turns into a victim and patient everyone has to coddle in between doing painful medical examinations. This is barely preferable to the beatdown and stabbing that happened at home. He convinces the doctors that he can go, but the federal government is a different story. Tim gets released from the hospital directly into protective custody. This amounts to a long-term-stay hotel with Rachel and a revolving cycle of other bodyguards. He’s in no condition to go to work and his apartment is still a crime scene.

Rachel brings Shredder, which is the first nice thing that’s happened since Tim opened his door and Crowder decked him.

“You owe me a new couch,” Rachel says, which is considerably milder than all the other things she clearly wants to say to him.

“You knew her name,” Tim says, scooping up the cat with his good arm and cradling her against his chest.

Rachel hasn’t confronted him since that day in the hospital. But the look on her face suggests she’s still incredibly pissed with him. Another blast is still in the pipeline and coming his way, she’s just reconsidering her approach. He thinks it’s the gay thing that’s throwing her off. He doubts she’d be protecting him if he’d been banging one of the girls at Audrey’s.

He hasn’t heard from Raylan since their brief communication through Loretta’s phone. Tim doesn’t actually know where his own phone is. Even if he had it, he’s not dumb enough to use it when an entire office of federal agents is combing through his life. So, it’s been a couple of days, and there’s only been silence.

Tim also hasn’t heard from Boyd Crowder. He doesn’t know how this goes. He’s never been in this position before. Tim doesn’t know if Crowder will send him an order or he’s expected to be proactive and start being a dirty cop all on his own.

Raylan claimed he was getting out. Tim really, really wants to believe that. Raylan has been stuck in Harlan his entire life. And not just because of Boyd. Raylan also doesn’t know where Tim is. Even if he’s left Harlan, protective custody means he’s not supposed to be able to find Tim.

~

“You ready to talk?” Rachel says, when she comes for her shift as bodyguard. She brings Chinese takeout with her, a gesture of goodwill that’s almost cancelled out by the calculating anger he can read in her eyes.

Tim takes a really, really long time opening all the containers one-handed. Rachel just watches him, silently.

“We talked,” he says, curtly, when he has his plate assembled.

“No, you lied,” Rachel says. “You lied and I covered for you, so we’re talking about it some more.”

“I told you I can’t.” The Chinese food smells good, but he’s lost his appetite.

“Who do you think is getting past me?” she demands, putting her hand on her gun holster.

To avoid speaking, Tim shoves chopsticks in his mouth.

Rachel isn’t touching the food. She pulls a thick manila file out of her workbag, slides it across the table.

“I pulled Givens’ file,” she says. He can tell she’s trying not to sound as angry as she is.

“I’ve read it.” He actually hasn’t. Not since back when he first slept with Raylan, anyway. He pulled it out as motivation to stop making the terrible life choices with Boyd Crowder’s hooker, but Boyd Crowder’s hooker was nothing like he was on paper, so it didn’t work.

“Have you?” Rachel pushes the file closer. “Givens is the deepest tick in Boyd’s entire posse.”

He squints at her. “Did you just call it a posse?”

“They grew up together,” she continues, ignoring his effort to distract her. “I think you’re being played.”

“Okay.” She can think that. Hell, it’s better than the reality.

Tim knows he’s just pissing her off. Maybe enough that she’s going to call Art and bust him on what she already knows.

Rachel rubs the side of her neck in frustration.

“Stop me if I get something wrong,” she says. “You and Givens…”

“His name is Raylan,” Tim interrupts, because every time she says his last name, he thinks of someone else. “He’s not Arlo.” There’s a significant difference.

“Have you met the parents?” Rachel demands. He glares at her and she puts up a hand in apology. “Okay,” she says. “You and Raylan hookup. You couldn’t find any gay men in Kentucky who don’t work at Audrey’s.”

“It wasn’t like that,” he tells her, even though he’s on to her strategy. She thinks if she paints the worst picture possible, he’s going to correct her. And it’s kind of working.

“Because you got the U.S. Marshal discount,” she says, downright meanly. “Even if you didn’t know it.”

“Maybe I paid.” Now she’s getting stuff right, but twisting it to be wrong.

She shakes her head. “No, no you didn’t.”

Tim chooses to shovel more rice into his mouth and refuses to respond.

“And you got attached,” Rachel continues. “I get it. He’s a handsome man. He’s probably great in bed. He was nice to you.”

“He’s actually mostly an asshole.” It feels ridiculous, but that’s one thing he can refute.

Rachel looks straight at him. “I’m sure he’s whatever you want him to be. Because he’s a professional.”

That stings more than Tim wants to admit. He can’t deny it, either. Rachel takes in his reaction and starts looking like she does right before someone breaks and confesses to everything.

“He doesn’t have much of a rap sheet,” she says. “So he’s got to be smarter than the rest. He figured out you wouldn’t do his bidding just for blowjobs.”

“Raylan doesn’t have a bidding,” he mutters, but the fight has mostly gone out of him. He knows where she’s going with this.

“But he has a master,” Rachel says, and Tim scowls hard. “Who needs as many ins with law enforcement as he can get.”

“Raylan never asked me to do anything for Boyd,” he says, emphatically. Tim feels like it’s important to repeat Raylan’s name. Rachel is avoiding it, so she can paint this picture of a manipulative prostitute. It’d be convincing, if he didn’t know Raylan.

“Of course he didn’t.” She tilts her head at him. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“Thanks,” he offers, quietly. At least she still thinks that.

“So he tells his pimp you won’t give it up, and his pimp comes and beats the shit out of you,” she says. And without names, the story seems so much different. “But that wouldn’t work, either.”

“No,” Tim agrees.

“So the pimp told you to do whatever he wants, or he’ll take it out on the innocent little whore mirage you’ve fallen in love with.” He stares at her, horrified. “And then he beat the shit out of you anyway, because he’s Boyd Crowder and that’s what he does on Friday nights.”

Tim drops the chopsticks on the paper plate with a muffled click. He tries not have any other reaction to Rachel’s words. She’s too damn smart. Even if she’s got Raylan all wrong. He is completely screwed.

“So let me tell you how this is going to go,” Rachel continues, ruthlessly. “You’re going to hear from Raylan. He’s going to be so sorry. He’ll ask you to get away from him. He’ll act like he doesn’t want you to protect him.” She drums her fingernails on the tabletop. “He might even say he’s going to run away with you. And I believe you, Raylan won’t ask you to climb in to Boyd Crowder’s pocket. He’s just going to be waiting there for you, so you’ll get in all by yourself, and then he’s going to ruin your entire life.”

~

In Harlan, everything returns to something like normal. Normal only worse. No one is locking Raylan in his trailer, anyway. But they did disappear his car. It’s just gone, and no one says anything about it. Jimmy is also watching him again. Not as closely as when the Bennetts were after him. It’s for his confinement, not protection, this time. And Jimmy has been told what will happen to him if Raylan knocks him unconscious and runs off again, so he’s being much more careful.

Devil and Johnny have been told not to touch him and actually backed off accordingly.

Boyd is more hands-on for a little bit longer. But nothing like that night. He doesn’t bring a gun or even mention Tim. It’s just what was once-upon-a-time usual, Raylan with his knees next to his head and Boyd pumping away until he gets his. The position does hurt his injured ribs and gunshot wound, which might be deliberate, but Boyd doesn’t spend an hour slapping him around.

It’s not every night, but on a weekly basis, Raylan is a nighttime treat in Boyd and Ava’s bed. Ava is not the most enthusiastic about this arrangement, Raylan can tell. And he has hopes that she’ll put an end to it before too long. Mostly, he’s just uses his mouth on Boyd until he’s ready to go. She doesn’t want much to do with him, at first.

He’s not privy to any conversation about him, but it continues.

“I don’t want you to feel neglected,” Boyd says, when Raylan diplomatically points out Ava’s indifference.

Raylan decides he never should have said anything, because Ava abruptly develops an interest in being involved.

Unfortunately, it’s entirely restricted to seeing what terrible and bizarrely sized and shaped objects she can fit up Raylan’s ass.

She must have been bored, he thinks bitterly, while watching him suck Boyd. Now, she has something to do.

Boyd polices his every move when Ava’s present, so Raylan can only lie there and take it. He stays quiet and polite, trying not give her any kind of performance. Her choice of extreme novelty sex toys suggests she wants him screaming and crying.

Once she has him have sex with Boyd. Ava’s never seen this, by choice. And he’s wary about how she’ll be, when it’s happening in her bed. But he can’t keep an eye on her and give Boyd the ride he wants. She has him straddle Boyd, facing away from her. The depth of penetration is deep and Boyd is keyed up by having Ava here. He’s slamming upwards and pulling Raylan down, not allowing him much control.

Then Ava shoves him forward and Boyd holds him there, so they’re pressed chest to chest.

Raylan feels fingers against his hole, realizes what she’s trying to do.

“It’s not bigger than you, babe,” she reassures Boyd, like that matters somehow.

“I don’t care if it is,” Boyd says, grinding his hips into Raylan. “And Raylan has no opinion. He can take it.”

Whatever it is – a gigantic dildo - burns and stretches, filling Raylan beyond what should be anatomically possible. He puts his head on Boyd’s shoulder and squeezes his eyes shuts. He stays stubbornly silently until the dildo is all the way in, crowding in with Boyd and completely overwhelming. It’s colder and harder than Boyd’s dick, and Ava’s hand thrusts are more erratic. But they’re both hitting his prostate and he’s going to come whether he wants to or not.

When he staggers out of their room, Jimmy is there to take him home.

He returns to his trailer, knowing someone is watching to make sure he stays.

Raylan hasn’t heard from Tim. He doesn’t know what he wants to say, but he wishes he could get in touch.

That’s a lie, because what he wants is to ask for help getting out. He doesn’t know how he’s going to do it alone.

~

Raylan still has to keep up appearances in Lexington. His clients are paying Boyd. He doesn’t really mind. Unlike Ava and Boyd, none of his regulars are having a competition about who can do more degrading and painful things to his ass. Jimmy the body guard and babysitter is also his chauffeur. Raylan’s in the same city as Tim – wherever he is – and doesn’t have a moment alone. Not that Tim is in his apartment. He’s sure the Marshal Service made him move. Tim might have a bodyguard, too. Except his bodyguard probably isn’t authorized to take a tazer to his balls if he misbehaves. Raylan’s is.

Except Jimmy’s not actually a terrible guy. He’s also not the brightest. Raylan can outwit him. He just needs a plan.

His first idea is bad. The only person he knows in Lexington who could get word to Tim is a 14-year-old girl. Using Loretta would be wrong. He chucked her out of Harlan and this would be pulling her back in. Tim said as much. Raylan scratches that plan, even though he knows she’d help him.

Still, he can use her indirectly. Raylan lies to Jimmy and claims to have a Sunday morning appointment with his Lexington regular. Jimmy evidently believes that a prominent married senior politician wants to take his gay prostitute to church with him or something. Raylan doesn’t correct him.

He doesn’t actually try to escape. Maybe he could. Raylan should walk into the nearest police station and… surrender or something. Except for all the cops he’s pissed off, over the years. And those are only the ones he knows personally. Boyd owns a lot of people. And his father owns more. The only person Raylan wants to go to is Tim. And he can’t do that.

What he does do is walk towards his regular’s house, then take off running as soon as he’s out of Jimmy’s sight. Raylan’s hope is that Loretta still spends Sundays with Tim. He sprints to her neighborhood. It’s only a couple miles away. His guess is confirmed – a black, government-issue sedan pulls into her driveway just as he rounds the corner. The timing is perfect.

He really wants to see Tim step out of the vehicle. That would be a miracle.

It’s not Tim. Of course not. But it is the woman who is probably his partner, a young black lady Raylan’s seen once before. Tim rarely discussed work with him, for obvious reasons, but he knows her name is Rachel. She’s also the one that interrupted Boyd’s attack on Tim. Raylan sends her his silent thanks, standing behind a tree and watching her walk up to the house.

In the five minutes that her back is turned, Raylan crosses the street and slips his SOS through the cracked passenger window. By the time she’s heading towards her car with Loretta in tow, he’s back behind his tree.

They don’t see him. Raylan watches them, wishing he could get in the car, too. Rachel knows nothing about him, though. Or she knows plenty, and that’s not better.

Rachel’s a good marshal, Tim’s told him. He can tell just by looking at her. Also, she has Loretta facing the car and is frisking her. Those are either excellent cop instincts or Tim told her to do it. Loretta makes obnoxious teenage faces at her, but soon they’re climbing into the car without issue. He sees Loretta sit down, then reach under herself and pull out his note. She hands it to Rachel, and Raylan can only hope after that.

~

Sundays are Tim’s new favorite day of the week. He doesn’t tell Loretta, who’d assume it’s her sparkling personality, but it’s true. Loretta’s presence is the only thing that gets Rachel to shut up about how she thinks Raylan is playing him. Otherwise, Rachel won’t let up. He got the point the first time. She wants him to admit he knows who attacked him and she doesn’t care what will happen to Raylan if he does. He wants to arrest Boyd Crowder as much as she does, but he can’t. He also wants to do other things, mostly involving his sniper rifles, to Boyd and the entire town of Harlan.

Rachel evidently thinks discussion of Boyd Crowder’s sex and drugs empire is inappropriate around Loretta. She clearly hasn’t thought long enough about just how Loretta came into Tim’s life, in the first place. He’s okay with that, since it won’t improve her mood.

In the weeks since the attack, little has changed. Tim’s still in protective custody and can’t go home. His injuries are healing, slowly, but he can’t go back to work. Tim doesn’t really have a gun hand, at the moment.

Raylan is still in Harlan. That’s all Tim knows about him.

Tim doesn’t believe Rachel. Raylan’s in genuine danger. Even if everything she said is true – that the entirety of their relationship has been one long ploy to get him working for Crowder – Raylan is in danger. Tim has stitches that speak to just what Boyd does to people who don’t cooperate with his gameplan. Hell, he didn’t even give Tim the chance to cooperate. Everyone in Boyd’s circle, devoted or not, is in danger.

Rachel has tried to get him to resent Raylan. He’s too banged up to cut his own meat and the whipping still makes any kind of sitting an adventure in pain. She’s suggested that Raylan is in Harlan, sipping on whiskey in between giving Boyd blowjobs, while Tim has to have a fourteen-year-old known drug dealer open his pill bottle for him because the twisting motion hurts too much.

Loretta hasn’t stolen any of his meds. She’s actually offered to supplement his pain relief, even though she knew it would just kick off a lecture. And if she hadn’t said it in front of Rachel – and he wasn’t already under so much scrutiny – he might have accepted, because pot doesn’t make him nauseated.

Protective custody is boring. The pain meds make him sleep a lot. Shredder is, unsurprisingly, destroying the hotel’s furniture. He hopes the Marshal service plans on paying for that. Tim doesn’t have much to do besides imagine what Boyd might do to Raylan.

Rachel brings Loretta, this Sunday. And he can see that she’s itching to start harassing him about Raylan, even with the kid here.

He tries to avoid it.

“Hey, Loretta, need some help with your math homework?” he asks.

Loretta gives him a look. “You don’t help as much as you think you do,” she says, ungratefully.

“I’m good at math,” he retorts, even though the vicodin makes him fuzzy and her graphing calculator is incomprehensible.

“When I have homework about the best angles to shoot someone in the head, I’ll ask,” she says.

“Good at that, too,” he mutters.

“Please don’t teach her that,” Rachel says, from her position by the door.

Tim can’t really play video games with Loretta anymore, but he can watch and make rude comments about her skills. She also genuinely has to do her homework, probably because she spends a lot of her time elsewhere procuring and distributing marijuana. Least he knows she’s not doing that in his presence. Except for that time she offered him some.

But the silence while Loretta does math encourages Rachel to fill the air with her new favorite topic. She wanders away from her post by the door, picking Shredder up off the center couch cushion and taking a seat between him and Loretta.

“Get her,” he orders the cat, because he knows what’s coming. Shredder just settles in to her lap, disloyally.

“Wanna talk about your CI?” she begins, infusing the last word with as much disdain as possible.

“No,” he says, honestly. Tim leans into the couch and waits.

“I spoke to one of Audrey’s girls,” Rachel says. “In lock-up for bashing her boyfriend over the head with all the metal parts of their meth lab.”

“Is this story appropriate for children?” Tim prompts, glancing pointedly at Loretta.

“It sounds like a “drugs are bad, don’t do them” story,” Loretta answers for him, without looking up.

Tim scowls at her, because she’s not helping.

“It is,” Rachel confirms. “In part.” She smiles at the top of Loretta’s head. “They had a disagreement over the distribution of meth so he naturally tried to stab her.”

“Ouch,” Tim says, since he’s recently learned that stabbing hurts a lot.

“I don’t touch meth,” Loretta says.

“No one’s ever stabbed anyone over the equitable distribution of pot, though,” Tim says, and Loretta just shrugs.

He’s willing to have this argument, again, if it gets him out of the other conversation.

“Anyway,” Rachel continues, refusing to engage. “I paid her commissary and she got real chatty.”

“Okay,” he says.

“I translated it from coked-out whore,” she says. “But I think I got the gist.”

“Iced out,” he corrects, but she ignores him.

“She said your CI is Boyd’s bootlicking dog,” Rachel says. “Now, a dog that gets kicked a lot, since I guess being a redneck druglord pimp is actually a really stressful occupation and everyone involved could really benefit from a lot of therapy.”

Loretta snorts.

“Do your homework,” Tim orders.

“But a dog,” Rachel says. “A loyal dog. Who likes being kicked and would never, ever betray his master.” She pauses. “And Boyd’s too fond of to ever do more than kick.”

Tim glares at her, saying nothing. Rachel just waits.

“Raylan hates Boyd,” Loretta says, casually, without raising her head from her math homework. In the silence that follows her statement, she finally lifts her gaze and glances at them. “Or was I not supposed to crack your clever code?”

Rachel turns to look at her.

“Oh, good,” she says. “You know Raylan, too.” She glares at Tim like he’s being a neglectful parent or something. That’s not fair because he isn’t her parent and he’s still unsure about who was a worse influence on the other.

“Yeah,” Loretta says. Then she seems to reconsider, looking at Tim for guidance. “Maybe.”

“No,” Tim says, since encouraging that is probably bad. “What you said. Say it.”

“Raylan’s not a dog,” Loretta says, offended. “And he hates Boyd.”

“Okay,” Rachel says, slowly. She’s weighing how much she wants to fight about Raylan with how little she wants to admit Loretta knows anything about this. “Let me guess, you sold to him.”

“He never paid,” Loretta says. “He’s kind of a dick about that. But,” she continues, defensively, “he hates Boyd.”

“Then why won’t he leave?” Rachel asks, but she’s looking at Tim.

Loretta shrugs. “He lives there,” she says, like she never questioned it.

“You ever see Boyd hurt him?” Rachel asks, and now she’s expecting Loretta to help her case.

“No,” Loretta says. “But Boyd usually pays people to do that stuff for him.”

“Well, at least we’re in agreement about that,” Rachel says, with annoyance.

“Pays,” Tim says, “or blackmails.” He looks hard at Rachel. “Because after they’ve done stuff for him, he can make them do more.”

Rachel tilts her head, unmoved. “Well, if they kill for Crowder, they don’t get much sympathy, later.”

“Raylan wouldn’t kill anyone for Boyd,” Loretta says, flatly. She frowns at Rachel. “I get you don’t like him, but he’s just a hooker. He’s not whatever you think he is. Boyd calls him the pretty pretty princess of Harlan.”

How badly Tim wishes that first part was true. “See,” is all he says to Rachel, knowing Loretta didn’t help.

Rachel completely ignores Loretta’s positive assessment.

“So,” she says to Tim, “What did the pretty pretty princess do that Boyd has on him? Because I know you offered Witsec and at this point you probably would go with him.”

“Nothing,” Loretta says.

Tim can’t say anything, because he’s not confessing for Raylan and he’s trying not to lie anymore, so he just looks down at the cat in Rachel’s lap.

“Oh,” Rachel says. “Not so pretty, huh?”

“What?” Loretta is confused. “What did he do?”

“Well, I’m glad he didn’t do it in front of her,” Rachel says, with exasperation.

“Raylan didn’t kill anyone,” Loretta repeats. “Seriously.”

“Yeah,” Rachel tells her. “He did.”

Loretta squints up her face. “Wait,” she says. “You mean the pervert?”

“What pervert?” Rachel asks. She holds a finger up a Tim. “Don’t you stop her.”

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Tim says, because he doesn’t.

Loretta stops talking and crosses her arms over her homework book.

“Go on,” Rachel orders.

Loretta looks at Tim. “I don’t want to get him in trouble,” she says, worried.

“He’s already in trouble,” Rachel says, and Tim can only shrug.

He’s not going to pressure the kid to lie. And he has no idea what she’s going to say.

“Raylan shot a pervert,” Loretta says, with brevity. “He deserved it. And it wasn’t for Boyd, it was for me.” She looks genuinely angry, no longer just defensive.

“He was defending you?” Rachel asks.

Loretta nods emphatically. “I’d have shot him, too.” She pauses, realizes this isn’t a ringing endorsement. “You’d have shot him.”

“You know about this?” Rachel asks Tim.

“I knew Boyd had something on him,” Tim allows. “I didn’t get the details.”

“I won’t testify against him,” Loretta says. “If you try to charge him.” She glares at Rachel.

Rachel switches gears at this point. She tries to deduce whether Loretta was raped and if she needs the tender loving care of…someone else. But she’s spent so much time attacking the girl’s rescuer that Loretta won’t say another word about what happened and just sticks to her story that Raylan killed someone who very much deserved it.

Finally, Rachel has the sense to back off and retreat to the kitchenette.

“I didn’t know that happened,” Tim says.

Loretta shrugs. “Don’t matter,” she says, with hostility. “He’s dead.”

“Good,” Tim says, and she nods in agreement.

“Is he okay, though?” Loretta asks, after a minute. She doesn’t say Raylan’s name, but she doesn’t have to.

“I don’t know,” Tim says, honestly.

Loretta frowns, hard. She reaches over and pets Shredder’s rump, stretched out in Rachel’s vacated seat. Tim’s too sore, and hugging her would be awkward, so he just reaches out and scratches the cat’s ears at the same time.

~

Rachel leaves them alone for a while. Tim’s concerned she might have decided to call Art and spill everything. He can see her loitering in the kitchen, where she can still watch the front door she’s supposed to be guarding. Worrisomely, she’s playing with her phone. Slowly and stiffly, he rises to join her. They can fight some more, slightly out of Loretta’s earshot.

“I was waiting for you,” Rachel says, softly, when he ambles up to her.

“My ass was situated,” he tells her, because sitting down is a production now.

Rachel blinks, then nods in understanding. She reaches inside her jacket and pulls out a folded piece of printer paper.

“This was in my car when I picked up Loretta,” she says, and hands it to him.

Confused, Tim takes it from her. He unfolds it, finds a sketch of a bunny with cartoonishly large eyes. A single word is scrawled above the drawing: HELP.

“In your car?” he echoes her.

“Loretta said she sat on it,” Rachel says. “You can ask if someone gave it to her.”

“Sure as hell better not,” he says, because he specifically told Raylan to leave her alone and he’s having a hard enough time defending him to Rachel as is.

“She’s not a great liar,” Rachel continues. “I think someone planted it in my car.”

“You didn’t see him?” Tim asks, aware he sounds a little pathetic.

“No,” she says. “I didn’t. But I wasn’t looking.” She pauses. “I’m not sure what I would have done.”

“Shot him?”

Rachel tilts her head. “Probably not, against my better instincts.” He smiles at her in gratitude. “I assumed you’d understand…the bunny?”

“Yeah.” He smiles with nostalgia now. “Inside joke.” Which she wouldn’t find funny at all, since it was all about him making ridiculous life choices. “It’s from him,” Tim adds. “I’m sure.”

“Why does he need help?” Rachel asks, neutrally. He admires her restraint.

“He said he was getting out,” Tim confides, finally. “Can you go arrest him?”

“I think you burned that bridge last month,” she says.

“I didn’t think I’d need it,” he mutters, bitterly.

“He dropped this in my car.” Rachel says, trying not to sound like she thinks he’s a hopeless moron. “Why does he need help? He could have…gotten in my car.”

“You just said you wanted to shoot him,” he says. “And he doesn’t know you. He’s gotten on the bad side of a lot of law enforcement.”

“That’s convenient,” she tells him, not convinced. “You’re the only one he trusts.”

Tim nods, pursing his lips.

“You know, maybe Boyd Crowder doesn’t want you in his pocket,” she says, as if theorizing aloud. “I don’t think he has the patience for the long game, and from what that hooker told me…” she trails off.

“What?’ he asks.

“Let’s say Crowder feels…proprietary…over Raylan.” She looks him in the eyes. “And you’re not worth the effort to turn. He’s pissed you were fucking his boy and you’re too moral to pay for it.”

“What’s your point?”

“I think he might just want to kill you,” Rachel says, flatly. “Except, when he can take his time.”

“Does that mean you’ll believe Raylan needs help?” he asks.

“Someone called in a wellness check on you,” she says. “The night you were attacked. It came from a burner phone, and it was a male voice.”

“Okay,” Tim says, not following.

“You were already in the hospital,” she says. “I got there faster than they called, because they had to drive back to Harlan.”

“Boyd called it in?” he guesses.

“That’s what I assumed,” she says. “But I just downloaded the audio file and listened to it.”

“And?”

“The caller sounded pretty damn upset, not proud of himself.”

“Raylan,” Tim says, softly.

She nods, looking contemplative.

“You starting to believe me?” he says, hopefully.

“I believe you are in a shitstorm of your own making,” she says.

“We never disagreed on that.” He’s not going to argue with her. Sleeping with Raylan was incredibly dumb. Falling in love with him was worse. But leaving him in Harlan would be unforgiveable.

“He’s in as much danger as I am,” Tim says, urgently. “Probably more, since the stupid son of bitch isn’t afraid of Crowder like he should be.”

“I don’t care about him,” Rachel says, coldly. “I care about you and stopping you from limping to his rescue with you in this condition so Crowder can finish what he started. Or anything else you might be thinking about doing to appease Crowder.”

She pauses, looking down. “I want you to promise you won’t do anything stupid.”

“Are you going to help?” He’s practically begging, unashamed.

“The DEA has a sting op on Bo Crowder,” she says. “Art let us know to be ready to help when it goes down.”

“Okay,” Tim says.

“The only reason I am telling you this is because we can grab up Givens at the same time, throw his ass in protective custody, make it look like he’s under arrest for smack like everyone else, it won’t look like it has anything to do with you.”

Tim nods.

“But it means you have to wait,” Rachel says. “Til the DEA moves.”

He nods again.

“And it means you absolutely can’t do shit if Crowder comes to you with an ask about this,” she says.

The accusation is there, but they both ignore it.

“We’re going to get him out,” Tim whispers, filled with gratitude and relief.

Rachel clearly doesn’t share his feelings. “I don’t know what the hell you’re going to do then,” she says, and Tim doesn’t either, but he doesn't care.

 

 ~comments appreciated~


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